Talk:Maltese language

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[edit] Message board

[edit] an article on the origins

As the subject of Maltese origin is an interesting topic, on which different views are expressed (normally without much evidence, though the evidence is out there), might that be a good article. It would need people who know about Maltese, various Arabic dialects, and ideally Phoenician, so would benefit from a wiki approach, with people contributing what they know and can document. I can do a reasonable job from the Tunisian side, and a little North African. Bernard Comrie did a paper somewhere on how Maltese can help us in evaluating Proto-Indo-European, as it has lost various throaty sounds (OK: pharyngeal, laryngeal and uvular), but some distinctions are carried on the vowels instead. It's interesting stuff, believe me.

And we could add Arabic correspondences in the alphabet section in the existing article.

--Drmaik 11:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Derivation

Maltese is derived from an Arabic dialect and not ancient Phoenician? I had been under the impression that Phoenicians had been the original settlers of Malta. Was their language completely displaced by a dialect of Arabic, or just heavily influenced by it, among other languages?

Good question; I had a similar one. A guidebook I have says that Maltese is basically Phoenician, yet I've also heard that it's basically Arabic. Both are Semitic, but it'd still be interesting to know the full story. -- pne 06:21, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid Maltese is, essentially, the North-African dialect of Arabic, with lots and lots of European loanwords.

As a Maltese, I studied history both in school and off it. It seems that when the Arabs arrived in Malta (around 870 AD), there is a period of time around a century long where there is no evidence of inhabitants in Malta. So perhaps the population was replaced or heavily supplemented. Which would account for Maltese being an Arabic language by descent. It's basically Arabic, but by personal experience you can only understand a few words from spoken Arabic, since there are many words of European origin. Interestingly enough, many terms used in Roman Catholicism have Arabic origin. Lent, for example, is known as Randan (from Ramadan). Christians are known as Insara (from Ansar, servant of God), and God is known as Alla [sic].

Of course, God is not only referred to by the Moslem name "Allah". Semitic Hebrew have the distinctive claim to the first recorded use of the name for the word "God". In fact, every instance of the Bible - a superbly accurate historical reference - describes the word "God " as the english equivalent of the word "Elohim". Of course, small "g" god, does not mean "Elohim", as that word can be attributed to anyone - or any thing, such as an idol.

The first recorded use of the word "Christian" was in Antioch, around 30 years after the Death and resurrection of Jesus. The word was simply, "Chrisianos", (Greek) which literally means "Follower of Christ". It is not a derivaticve in any way of the word "Ansar".

It is easy to differenctiate between Hebrew and Arabic when using words, regardless of the language. One doesn't need to speak many languages to follow the orgin of a word. Nor should we allow semantics to dictate history. History is far more important, and also doesn't require a mix of languages to understand it. Thankfully, we have translations for that!

"What is unusual about the Maltese verb system is that it incorporates Romance verbs and adds Arabic suffixes and prefixes to them (e.g., idde?idejna "we decided" < (i)dde?ieda 'Romance verb' + -ejna 'Arabic 1st person plural perfect marker'). Arabic and Hebrew only rarely do this, although several Arabic dialects do."

Modern Hebrew actually does it quite all-the-time, albeit oftentimes from Slavonic or Germanic roots, ie. "lepancher" (to puncture) "letalpen" (to telephone), "lehartsot" (to lecture, from german "erzählen"), all fully inflected in hebrew Binyanim and Mishkalot. I remember reading somewhere recently about it being about 40% of new verbs accepted since the 1970s. I see it myself in everyday use all the time, I wouldn't say 'rarely'.
No, modern Hebrew does not do this: *le-telefon, ata *te-telefon, ata *telefont (the asterisk means that this is not real Hebrew) -- that's the point. Maltese does: ittelefona, ittelefonajt, tittelefona.

" If irregular, they fall in the pluralis fractus category, in which a word is pluralized by internal vowel changes: ktieb, kotba "books", ra?el, ir?iel "men". This is very well-developed in Arabic and also exhibited by Hebrew (sefer, sfarim "books")."

again, I have a little problem with the 'hebrew' reference, since this is not an 'irregular' in hebrew, but rather regular phonetic 'segol' -> 'shwa'


I am just annoyed about all these "know it all" who try to coin the maltese language as Arabic, or North African, or even some, of Hebrew conncection.

In order to understand the origin of the Maltese Language, all you have to know is learn 1) the spoken langauge of Lebanon, 2) the spoken language of Sicily, 3) Arabic,

Lebanese is a mix of Phoenician and Arabic Maltese is a mix of Phoenician and Old Sicilian (and I mean old)!

I happen to speak Lebanese, Arabic, Italian, and plenty of Sicilian. I am just amazed at the similarites, and divergences of the two spoken languages of Malta and Lebanon,

I am building a site fo rresearch on this subject. http://malta.lebaneseclub.org

Recent genetic research underwritten by Natinal Geocraphic is showing genetic similarities between the inhabitants of Lebanon and Malta, to prove that both people came from the same root!

Raymond

[edit] Maltese is not Arabic, nor Hebrew, nor North African

I am just annoyed about all these "know it all" who try to coin the Maltese language as Arabic, or North African, or some even, of Hebrew conncection.

just in case you're not informed, Phoenician language==Hebrew language (well, 'almost'), just try reading any phoenican inscription vs. hebrew bible. Many of the cited roots on your site, are Arabic rather than Phoenican.

In order to understand the origin of the Maltese Language, all you have to know is:

1) the spoken language of Lebanon, 
2) the spoken language of Sicily, 
3) Arabic (so you can tell what is Arabic and what is Pdistinctly Phoenician),

Today's Lebanese is a mix of Phoenician and Arabic. Today's Maltese is a mix of Phoenician and Old Sicilian (and I mean old)!

I happen to speak Lebanese, Arabic, Italian, and plenty of Sicilian. I am just amazed at the similarites, and divergences of the two spoken languages of Malta and Lebanon,

I am building a site for research on this subject. http://malta.lebaneseclub.org

Recent genetic research underwritten by Natinal Geocraphics is showing exact genetic similarities between the inhabitants of Lebanon and Malta. This further proves that both people came from the same roots! The shores of today's Lebanon, not Carthage!

Carthagians are also Phoenicians, warrior phoenicians that settled in North Africa and spoke the same Phoenician language (which in today's Tunis, probably mixed with the local Berber / Arabic).

Maltese were merchant sailors, not warriors. They came directly from Lebanon. They led a peaceful and neutral life.

When Carthagians lost the Punic wars against Rome, survivors must have fled north and settled with their Phoenician cousins in Malta!

I am no historian, nor pretned to be. but I am very much interested in studying the common Phoenician roots of the Lebanese and Maltese spoken languages.

Raymond

You know Lebanese, Arabic, etc., but you don't know Phoenician. If you look at any book or article on Phoenician, you'll instantly see that although Lebanese and Classical Arabic and Maltese are pretty similar to each other, Phoenician is very, very different from them.

[edit] Good refernce Paper

Hi,

I tend to agree with you although I have to admit, that besides catching 10% of conversations between Palestinians and Lebanese I also tend to understand tunisians quite well. However I never looked into this seriously. The other day a Colleague mentioned that the famous linguist Mark Aronoff had a go at the subject. Et voilà... his paper is online. It's a PDF file: The verbal morphology of Maltese

Do you live in Lebanon? in Our University Library we have an old Maltese-Italian-Arabic Dictionary which was printed in Lebanon in the 30's. As far as I know after 75 years such books loose their Copyright. I'll try and find the address and you might check out if the publishing house still exists. I'm not sure if we could prcocess it through an OCR, but we might distribute parts of the book to mt wikipedians and the job should be done manualy within a year or two :)

[edit] Template Addition

I added the language template to the article, so if anyone sees any mistakes they're welcome to make them. 6:47 EST Haverton

I am going to add that Maltese is spoken in the US; I would think the number of speakers is approximately the same as those in Canada and Australia. There are significant Maltese communities in the Midwestern US.128.227.191.106 06:41, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unique, just like the others...

That phrase where (to paraphrase) "Maltese is unique in Europe in having dual number except for Slovene, Icelandic, & Sorbian" should be re-written. It is either unique or it isn't, and in this case, it isn't. I'm unique in that I have two eyes--not counting all the others who have two eyes, of course.Ōđ


[edit] Language codes in template

I think the language codes are wrong or inverted, the first one should be a two letter code and the second one a third letter code.

[edit] bil-Malti

Why is it that when the mt code appears as well as in the Maltese Wiki, bil-Malti is used? it is pointless! it is the same as saying "in English"! I could give a bit of reason to "il-Malti" as it is used as such in spoken Maltese (i.e. giving it an article), though this still looks very untidy. But I can see no conceivable reason why "bil-Malti" is being used.

As to ethymology, I think you should use Maltese research such as by Dr Aquilina or by the Akkademija tal-Malti.

VodkaJazz 03:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I finally got around to getting this fixed. It has been corrected in the underlying MediaWiki software. Srl 04:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Number of Speakers

How can there be only 330,000 Maltese speakers when the population of Malta is 400,000? Basic maths mate. 203.134.135.94 12:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

As an Australian with Maltese ancestory, I think that the number of Maltese speakers is grossly underestimated given there are massive Maltese communities living around St. Albans/Sunshine/Broadmeadows/Preston in Melbourne, and Cabramatta in Sydney. Since the influx of immigration in the 50's and 60's, a total of 100,000 Maltese emigrated to Australia; So the number of Maltese speakers is possibly around the 500,000 to 600,000 mark.

One side effect of the bi-linguistic nature of Malta is that immigrants to Australia of that era would also speak English and would therefore find no need to teach Maltese to their children, to the point that the Maltese speaking population in Australia is declining.

(UNSIGNED)

Its not easy to trace the number of speakers Maltesedog 18:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Could someone please provide a source for the number of speakers? According to Ethnologue [1] there are 371,900 total speakers of Maltese. While that number may not be accurate, it at least comes from some sort of at least vaguely reliable source. I am going to change the number in the article to reflect Ethnologue's number, but if you have another source for the number of Maltese speakers please feel free to include it in the article. NoIdeaNick
The estimate given is from a paper written in 1983. We need a better source! └ VodkaJazz / talk ┐ 10:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] language or dialect?

Malta now says that Maltese is basically an Arabic dialect .... Maltese language says it is derived from Arabic (but presumably a language). Which is it? Shouldn't it be consistent? I understand (from the talk page) that it is debated, at least here. Just trying to minimize confusion to users of wikipedia. Srl 10:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The latter description is the better. It uses 'derived' to suggest a genetic relationship. The word 'dialect' has a number of problems, and has very little linguistic value. As it is a subjuctive word it should not be used to make objective statements. --Gareth Hughes 13:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

History_of_Malta#Arabs also says derived from. Srl 16:44, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Maltese is a language NOT at a dialect. It is not only made from the semitic language, but also composed of words from the romantic languages and also the Anglo-Saxon language. Maltesedog 19:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Disagree with the clasification of the language. even though its a semitic language, its not an arabic language. see above Maltesedog 09:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(See Talk:Akkademja tal-Malti) I tend to agree that it should be under Semitic and not Arabic proper. 「ѕʀʟ·！」 16:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
It would be correct to say that Maltese is not Arabic, and it would also be correct to say that Maltese is not an Arabic language (even less correct, Arabic dialect). However, as a Semitist, I know how imprecise it would be to leave Arabic out of the genetic classification. The Arabic language is a South Central Semitic language -- this is the next level up -- and Maltese does not sit as an even partner in this group: it has to be placed under Arabic. This refers to the diachronic development of Maltese: it is descended from Arabic, but has become sufficiently different from it to be called an Arabic language no longer. The classification is telling a linguistic truth about Maltese: it's from Arabic, not of Arabic. --Gareth Hughes 17:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Garzo, in looking at the categories, I think what might be a little odd is that the hierarchy goes: Semitic languages→Arabic language→Arabic languages, the latter seeming to be mostly different dialects. However, once visiting any of the pages which reference Maltese the explanations are adequate. I do wonder if Arabic language and languages are in the reverse order in the hierarchy. Varieties of Arabic is interesting, and in fact I wonder if some summaries of Joseph Aquilina's work in this area (re: Maltese) might be interesting to put here. 「ѕʀʟ·！」 18:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

If you see the semetic article.. Maltese falls under a category on its own and not arabic.. Maltesedog 18:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I was looking at the infobox, and I think that's all right. About the categories, I think the 'Arabic languages' one could be removed: after all, the 'Maltese language' category is a subcategory of it already. In the Semitic languages article, Maltese is figuratively placed besides Arabic, under the heading South Central (Arabic) languages. --Gareth Hughes 18:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Good point.. i removed the cat as redundant. 「ѕʀʟ·！」 00:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

what about the infobox Maltesedog 07:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The infobox is diachronic so placing Arabic above Maltese simply says that the latter is derived from the former; it does not necessarily imply that it is the former.

I understand your point but this does not show that its not just derived from Arabic. Nowadays some argue that most of the words used are dervied from English and Italian. Maltesedog 16:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Linguistically, Maltese is derived from Arabic, and influenced by other English and Italian. I find Spanish (a Romance language) vocabulary easier to understand than Norwegian (a Germanic language), because Spanish vocabulary is more alike to English vocabulary. However, English is a Germanic language, and so is linguistically closer to Norwegian. For the Maltese, Italian and English may feel more akin, but actually the roots are in Arabic. In 870, people settled in Malta not speaking South Central Semitic, but Arabic, and Maltese is derived from their language. The some that argue are not linguists if they deny Maltese is derived from Arabic. --Gareth Hughes 17:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I have made an enquiry at the Akkademja tal-Malti on the matter. Will be back shortly with a response Maltesedog 19:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The difference between language and dialect is not a linguistic one but depends upon non-linguistic factors. As a matter of fact, Maltese IS an Arabic dialect. The very fact that Maltese understand Tunisian Arabic and are understood quite well by Tunisians is a sufficient proof that both languages (or dialects, or speeches or wht you call'em) belong to the same conceptual category. I have taken part in an AIDA (Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe) congress and all scholars there spoke of Maltese just in the very same way as any other Arabic dialect.
The question is, Maltese aren't muslim and are culturally much more oriented towards the European culture, so they simply adopt their spoken language as an official language and dont'bother looking for its genetic ties or categorization. On the other hand, the so-called "Arabic countries" who adopt Arabic as their official language are ideologically oriented towards the "Arabic world" and stress this by recognizing only "classical Arabic" (or something alike) as a language which must be taught in their schools and used in official documents, and consider the language everybody speaks as a "dialect". Of course, just as Maltes possesses a lot of European vocabulary, also Tunisian dialect has a lot of Frenche and Italian borrowings and so on.
--Vermondo 12:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maltese National Identity and the Position of the Maltese Language

To all the Maltese folks here Kif Int. I would like first to state that this post should not be taken as a flame. It is just my analysis of the situation of the Maltese Language. Maltese is definitely derived from Arabic and the structural and lexical relation it has with the Arabic Macrolanguage is similar to the relation that many Arabic dialects have with the this Macrolanugage. I am a native speaker of Western Libyan and, to cite my own experience, have been several times to Malta. For me Maltese was not very difficult to understand. However, conversing with the common people I found that the idea of Maltese being Semetic (and not Arabic) is highly popularized. This can be understood by considering the socio-political position of Malta. The national pride of the Maltese rests a great deal on historical events that have to do with driving the Muslims (hence Arabs) away and defending the cross - See History_of_Malta#Arabization_and_the_Maltese_language and Siege of Malta (1565) I have nothing against this as any nation is free to assign symbols to express their identity. But this Islam-Christianity-opposition-based identity has left the Maltese in a tension of either being Christian, and thus non-Arab (not even linguitically), or admitting to being liguistically Arab and risk defiling their Christianity-centered identity. Fro me this is highly understandable but I don't think it should block the advancement of accurate research-baced knowledge. I have nothing against Maltese poeple but I am strongly convinced that this accurately describes the Identity tension that leads to the bitter denial of the origins of their language in Malta. Saħħa w gratsi (not sure about the spelling though) Hakeem.gadi 12:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Derivation?

Is Maltese the only language in the world derived from Arabic? Stallions2010 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics

Please refer to these two sections:

While to my knowlege Maltese is much more inclined towards Aramaic rather than Arabic, I shall not contest this as my knowledge is limited. What I would like to point out is that the genetic tree can be improved from the article above. VodkaJazz 19:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Various

Hi everyone,

1. Re: the origins of Maltese: I am currently working on a PhD thesis on the subject. I will try to put together a few paragraphs on the subject and submit it for peer review.

2. Re: Phoenician: for the last time: Maltese IS NOT derived from Phoenician. It is - as already said - essentially a dialect of Arabic with a large Romance (mostly Sicilian and Italian) vocabulary.

Raymond: we "know it alls" are also known as scientists and we engage in something called "research". That is how we arrive at our conclusions. Maltese is related to Lebanese Arabic about as much as English is related to Dutch. And neither Maltese, nor Lebanese Arabic are derived from Phoenician. While there is some evidence for your claim about Maltese originating in the Levant, today's population of Malta most likely originated from Sicily.

3. Language or dialect: I believe the old maxim "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" applies here. Linguistically, Maltese is a dialect of Arabic. Politically, Maltese is an independent language.


---

I have to disagree here: if by Arabic we mean Modern Standard, then considering the level of difference and issues of intelligibility we have clearly different lanaguages, just as for the difference between Modern Standard Arabic and Tunisian Arabic, for example: not inherently mutually intelligible, cognate lexicon not more than 60%. The reason we count Tunisian (Arabic) as a dialect of Arabic is primarily because of the diglossia in the society, and what Tunisians feel about what they speak (most feel it is Arabic). However, Maltese, a bit more divergent from MSA than Tunisian, does not have diglossia with MSA, and people *definitely* don't feel they are speaking Arabic. But there is an Arabic origin: different issue. --Drmaik 17:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

---

Drmaik: thank you for your comment. To clarify, by "Arabic" I do not mean MSA. The issues of intelligibility and divergence are synchronic, while I believe the whole situation must be viewed diachronically. In that respect, both Tunisian Arabic and Maltese evolved from the same source (let's put aside the well-known controversies and call it Classical Arabic for now), as did MSA. You are right in pointing out that the reason we count Tunisian (and Egyptian and Iraqi and Sudan) Arabic as a dialect are social. Diglossia, together with the lack of official status, is the main difference. As for the linguistic differences, Maltese is certainly a bit more different from than, say, Tunisian or Syrian. But on the other hand, to an average speaker of Tunisian Arabic or Syrian Arabic without any education in MSA, MSA is as unintelligible as it is to a speaker of Maltese. It would then seem that only criterion for distinguishing between a 'language' and a 'dialect' is a social one, in which case my comment above still applies.

Speaking of "Arabic origin" is, in my opinion, rather confusing, as is the usual "Maltese is a mixed language" comment. Maltese is either the result of a normal language transmission (Thomason & Kaufman 1988), in which case it is genetically identical with Tunisian, Moroccan and Yemeni Arabic. The fact that it has been heavily influenced by Sicilian/Italian is rather irrelevant here. All modern Arabic dialects differ considerably from their source language(s) and have been influenced by other languages (e.g. Iraqi Arabic by Farsi), some even as strongly as Maltese (e.g. Cypriot Arabic by Greek). I recommend Alan S. Kaye's article in Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 27(1994) on the issue.

The other option would be that Maltese has undergone a process similar to creolization or partial creolization (also called partial restructuring; Holm 2004). This is essentially the subject of my PhD thesis, but I am still far from any definitive conclusions. --Bulbul 17:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


4. Re:Arabic languages: there is only one Arabic language. Those vernaculars used in Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq etc. are generally referred to as dialects. Since there is only one written Arabic language, this kinda makes sense.

5. Maltesedog: you said "nowadays some argue that most of the words used are dervied from English and Italian." Who in their right mind would ever say that? The core vocabulary is still of Arabic origin. Besides, the morphology of Maltese is largely Semitic (perfect vs. imperfect, pluralis fractus etc.). Plus, I hate to pull rank, but this is an encyclopedia, i.e. a work of science. We should care about what scientists have to say, not about what common people think. After all, if I have a cold, I see a doctor, I do not conduct a poll.

6. Stallions2010: depending on how you define a language (as opposed to a dialect). I personally believe - along with, say, the late Joshua Blau, Geoffrey Khan of Cambridge University or Otto Jastrow - that Judeo-Arabic, Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi are another languages (as opposed to dialects) derived from Arabic. This time, however, the criterion is not political, but more of a question of intelligibility and ortography.

7. VodkaJazz: no, Maltese is not inclined more to Aramaic than Arabic. The verb forms, the phonology, the words - everything points to Arabic origins of Maltese.

8. I will be more than happy to provide a selected/comprehensive bibliography of scholarly research on the Maltese language and related issues. For those of you wishing to do your own thing, I recommend the Linguistic Bibliography at www.blonline.nl.

--Bulbul 01:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not you're right (I believe you have your points, though some of them conflict), that's really no way to talk to people who you haven't met before. Adam Mathias 02:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear Adam, having reviewed my comment, I do not see what has prompted your reaction. But ff you or anyone else feels insulted by what I wrote, I sincerely apologize. --Bulbul 15:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The description of Maltese as an Arabic underlying stratum with a heavy overlay of Romance vocabulary is interesting (and apparently noncontroversial here; disagreements seem to be on fine points) -- particularly in that it resembles the common description of medieval Lingua Franca (Sabir) that arose around the 11th century with the increase in Mediterranean trade. Has there been any study of Sabir influence on Maltese? This might be interesting, since Malta has always been a major center of the Med's sailing/trading culture. -- Craig Goodrich

I looked up only five words (love, head, hand, world, life) in this English-Maltese dictionary [2], and all Maltese words closely matched their Arabic counterparts (habb - Haubb) (ras - ras) (id - eed) (dinja - dinya) (hajja - Hayya). If Maltese is derived from Aramaic and not Arabic then how did all these Arabic words find their place in the Maltese language? I'm convinced that Maltese is an Arabic dialect! Just my 2 cents. --Inahet 07:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

More words: (you - inti- inta or inti [fm]) (doctor - tabib - tabib) (man - ragel - rajul or rigal) (woman - mara - mara) (book - ktieb - kitab) (work - xoghol - shogl) (people - nies - nas) (one - wiehed - wahid) (two - tnejn - ithneyn) (three - tlieta - thiletha) (four - erbgha - erba'ah) (five - hamsa - khamsa) (six - sitta - sitta) (seven - sebgha - seb'ah) (eight - tmienja - thimenya) (nine - disgha - tis'ah) (ten - ghaxra - 'ashara). The majority of words I looked up are Arabic. What are the Aramaic words? -Inahet 07:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correction

In the section on plural, I corrected "or -in (cf. Arabic -ēn and Hebrew -im)" to "or -in (cf. Arabic -īn and Hebrew -im)". In some modern Arabic dialects, "-ēn" is a dual marker ("āni" in Classical Arabic), while Maltese "in" is derived from Arabic "īn" (in Classical Arabic "ūna" in casus rectus and "īna" in casus obliquus). --Bulbul 15:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the big deal?

I find the discussion of the origins of Maltese rather odd. Most languages whether classed as I.E or Afro-Asian or some other group are bastards and standardised dialects, English is a typical bastard and standardised dialect. Most of you discussing the Maltese language don't know, but there are Maltese dialects. The Standard Maltese is the dialect of Valletta and the written form is based on Valletta pronunciation. It matters not whether the muslim North African invaders, who incidentally came via Sicily and probably born there, imposed their form of North African Arabic on the Maltese or whether Maltese is a modern survivor of some Punic language. The Maghrebi Arabic connection can be proven, but the Punic one cannot as Punic is a dead branch of Semitic while Arabic vernaculars abound. Maltese people cannot understand any Arabic vernaculars, just odd words. The Maltese language is the result of native Maltese trying to get on with foreign overlords whether Carthagenians, Romans, a ragbag of Christian knights, Napoleanic French or arrogant Britishers. This getting on is evident in the language. The loss of pronouns, the simplification of the language, loss of Semitic throaty sounds, the mix of Semitic family and domestic words with Romance ones. Example Omm/mother, Missier/father, Cugin/cousin, Cucin/kitchen, Banju/bath. As English lost its inflexions and became simplified due to the mixing of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans with native Britons. Maltese before the muslim invaders was probably a mix of Greek and Romance on which Maghrebi Arabic, modified by a generation sojourn in Sicily, lead to the simplified, with loss of most Semitic sounds, as seen in modern Maltese which only became written (fixed) comparatively recently. Maltese is essentially a patois like the language of the Bounty descendents. Pre muslim invader Maltese combined with Maghrebi Arabic and reintroduction of Sicilian Italian plus later additions of French and English. Incidentally Maltese people do not like Arabs and non Europeans in general. They also equate Arabs with non whites and barbarism. They are extremely offended by being lumped with non Europeans like Arabs because of their unusual for Europe language. The result of muslim and non European colonialism in the centuries following the death of Muhammad.

[edit] art (land) is Semitic

When giving plurals, 'art' is implied to be Romance, but it's perfectly Semitic as a word, apart from its plural. (though at least the -et part is Semitic in origin). Could someone provide a better example? It's an interesting example of a word, however (Arabic plural ara:đi)

Hmm, no. You're mistaking one word for another. Please notice that the word referred to is arti(art), not art(earth, land). Arti is derived from Sicilian arti, whereas art is indeed from Arabic, but not the word in question.200.208.131.106 22:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The roots of Maltese

Professor Aquilina's brief definition of Maltese is certainly the most correct. Including material such as: "Maltese is roughly 40% Arabic and the rest being Italian and English with a few Sicilian loanwords." is, to say the least, incorrect. Where did the writer get his/her information from? How can you include information such as "roughly 40%" in an encyclopaedia? Is it 39% or 41% (sarcasm intended)? This sort of playing around with numbers is more suited for a magasine article, or for a discussion on the basis of Maltese, than for a serious encyclopaedic entry. Moreover, playing around with percentages without carefully analysing the entire structure of Maltese is not the sort of material which should be included in an encylopaedia. One should include information which has a scholarly origin and which is backed by the opinion of Maltese linguists.


Moreover, the following information - "Maltese grammar is fundamentally derived from Arabic, with a very large influx of Romance vocabulary, especially Sicilian and Norman French. Although influenced by Romance languages, Maltese grammar is still strongly Semitic." - is all neatly given by the Professor Aquilina definition. An encylopaedia isn't about giving your own interpretation of what is widely held to be fact. It is about giving the exact fact. Every word counts, and adding extra words, such as those added by the above quotes sentance, is not the best way of displaying information. Writing that "Maltese grammar is still strongly Semitic" is a subjective interpretation - one must write the fact objectively - the basis of Maltese is semitic and the superstructure is Romance - that is all that should be written. The brief defition is accepted as correct and was taught to me by my professors at the University of Malta. Adding or changing this definition does nothing but hinder correct information.

MaxCosta 03:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


"the basis of Maltese is semitic and the superstructure is Romance". This may very well be true, but it's not clear what it really means. I'm sure that Prof Aquilana went on to extrapolate what he meant by these terms. But to the general reader this means very little. So I'm replacing this section again with what was there before (not my own words, by the way, but I do think they give a good summary which makes things clearer than what you have written). And apart from the failure of various adjectives to agree in definiteness with their nouns, can you think of any other area of Maltese grammar which is not Semitic? --Drmaik 18:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correction needed

If you take a look at this, someone had changed the Maltese phrase but not the Arabic nor the Hebrew. Do we revert the edits? --Inahet 05:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It has been almost 2 weeks since the edit was made and no one has made a correction, so for the sake of not confusing anymore readers I reverted the inconsistency. But it was quickly reverted without being corrected. How about we leave in the consistent comparison until we find another or correct the other comparison? It's so severly inconsistent that it should be removed immediately from the article until a better replacement is found. --Inahet 00:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Im another person, just to ask the Maltese people who know Maltese... what do you think about the word "bewsa", which means "kiss". Where does it come from? In Arabic to kiss is something like "yabous"... however "beso" is spanish! Any ideas? How can we definitely say it's from one source and not the other?

Afraid I'm not Maltese, but Tunisian Arabic for a kiss is bu:sa. I think that makes the origin clearer... --Drmaik 18:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah "bewsa" is definitely of semitic origin. You can always tell whether a word is of romance or semitic origin: just compare the word to the Italian word, in this case it would be "bacio". "Bewsa" is spelt and pronounced utterly differently, hence it's not of romance origin. Marcus1234 18:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm that "other person", I have a few other words to discuss. "Ejja" (to come, pronounced ay-uh), who knows definitely where this word comes from? I've just discovered that "come" in Latin is written EIA and pronounced equally. Could this be a latin word? I mean it's equal!

Yep, it is. "Ejja" can also mean "Well!", as an expression of surprise or happiness. It is generally used only colloquially though. I believe "eia" is an obsolete Sicilian word (not sure if it's still in use), so that explains why it's part of the Maltese language. Marcus1234 19:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing; I happen to know for a fact that the Cremonese dialect (Cremona is a city in Lombardy, northern Italy), "look!" is not "guarda!" as in Italian, but; "ARA!". I thing this is a surprising fact for all those who thought 'ara' is a semitic word. I mean Cremona can't possibly have semitic influences in it's dialect, it's too far north!!

This is doubtless a coincidence. The verb "rajt" (to see/look) is of Semitic origin as far as I know. Marcus1234 19:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

How can you be so sure? I mean "ara" is totally the same. Who determines where a word comes from? I don't agree with your saying "doubtless a coincidence". I don't believe in coincidences; rather there is a reason why ara in cremonese and ara in maltese are totally the same. I've lived with people from Cremona who speak in their native dialect and I was suprised by the great many words that are very similar or equal to Maltese words which are not so perfectly in standard Italian.

Well determining where a word comes from is really simple, one must merely look at the Semitic/Romance version of the word and compare the two. In this case, the Maltese word "ara" comes from the verb "tara" (to see), which is Semitic. Now, considering the standards of the Cremonese dialect, the word "ara" could very well come from the word "guarda", which in Cremonese could perhaps be pronounced "guar'a" or "uar'a", where the "d" and/or the "g" is basically muted, so it sounds similar to the Maltese "ara". Therefore, its most probably (not doubtless) a coincidence. Of course, I could be wrong. Marcus1234 13:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semitic language?

I noticed that on the English Wikipedia that the Maltese language is labelled as a "semitic language", yet on the Italian wikipedia it is described as merely having semitic origins, and on the Maltese wikipedia it is described as having a "semitic basis." This undoubtedly makes more sense especially since more than half of the modern Maltese vocabulary is not of Semitic origin, so how can it be described as a Semitic language? I think it should be described as a "language of semitic origins" rather than a "semitic language." Opinions please. Marcus1234 09:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That depends on what perspective you're looking for. As has been pointed in previous discussions here, linguistically, Maltese is not only Semitic but an Arabic language in the same sense that English is a Germanic language. Maltese is more specifically part of the dialect continuum of Maghreb Arabic. This is the diachronic development of Maltese and it is generally not disputed in Arabic linguistics. English has an enormous amount of Romance vocabulary (French and Latin), yet it is still structurally Germanic not Romance. Another example is modern Persian whose core vocabulary is almost 50% Arabic, but has almost none of the Arabic grammatical processes that are productive in Maltese. Persian is still essentially an Indo-European language unrelated to Semitic. Maltese is not the only descendant of Arabic which has incorporated a massive amount of foreign loanwords. It's actually very similar in that sense to other West Arabic languages which have all been significantly influenced by any combination of French, Spanish, Italian and Berber. I think the use of the word "Semitic" (as opposed to Arabic) actually came about as a compromise given the socio-political factors involved in classifying Maltese (the same factors involved in classifying Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and Libyan as merely "Arabic dialects"). — [zɪʔɾɪdəʰ] · ☥ 21:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Just to agree with zerida: we're talking origin and charcteristics, not where most of the words come from, though that is also relevant to mention. Drmaik 09:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, but isn't it still best to describe the language as having Semitic origins rather than merely "a Semitic language"? Yes, grammetically the language is mostly Semitic (or Arabic), but at least 60% of the vocabulary is Romance and probably 5-10% is English (I have asked the Akkademja tal-Malta regarding this and I'm currently awaiting a response). If, hypothetically, in twenty years' time, 90% of the vocabulary was Romance and English, could we still say that the language is Semitic/Arabic? Perhaps you could enlighten me on the subject since I do not know much. Thanks. Marcus1234 11:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Zerida already mentioned the case of English: if you look in a dictionary you will find most of the vocab is Romance (from French or Latin), but that does not change the classification of English as a Germanic language (which has then heavily borrowed from other languages). A more extreme example is Albanian which forms its own branch of Indo-European, despite the fact that only around 500 words are from that branch: the vast majority of the vocab is from other language families (in particular Slavic). But its classification is still 'Albanian (family)' rather than Slavic etc. So the categorisation of a language depends on its 'genetic' (used metaphorically!) history, rather than the vocab (and even the occasional grammatical structure: English has picked up at least one Romance structure). Drmaik 05:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
On Wikipedia. the English language is described as "a West Germanic language that developed from Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. English, having its major roots in Germanic languages, derives most of its grammar from Old English. As a result of the Norman Conquest, it has been heavily influenced, more than any other Germanic language, by French and Latin." Therefore, shouldn't the description of the Maltese language be more than merely "a Semitic language written in the latin alphabet? That's all I'm saying. Marcus1234 06:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Il-waranofsinhar it-tajjeb

This looks like a machine translation of "good afternoon". I admit my Maltese is far from fluent, but is this something people actually say? Rhialto 01:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope. The average person usually says "Good afternoon." There's no real Maltese equivalent. Marcus1234 08:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
OK then, I've removed that line. Rhialto 09:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] official

"Maltese became an official language of Malta in 1936, alongside English."

Well and what before? The official was another language?

And I'm curiours, why 1936? Chance, or some more important event? And why English too? --euyyn 00:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I expect it was a government decree, one of many that would have been made that year. This is how languages become official languages. As for why that year, I suspect it could have been to more firmly tie Malta into the UK side of the alliance in a war that many wiser politicians suspected was brewing. Previously, Italian was the language of 'culture' and the most important foreign language to learn among the Maltese elite, although most of these probably spoke Maltese too. Rhialto 05:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Cool material to mention in the article. Is there a source anywhere? --euyyn 18:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Only what my grand father told me, and despite my views on teh matter, WP does not consider him reliable :( Rhialto 13:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
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